Why Cybercrime Act can’t work, by ex-NITDA chief

The Cybercrime Act cannot work, the former Director-General, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Prof Officer Cleopas Angaye, has said.

Angaye, who championed the development of Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) project under his regime, said the law cannot work without the completion of the project.

Speaking on the sideline of the investiture of the new President of the Nigeria Computer Society (NCS) in Lagos at the weekend, he told The Nation that fighting cyber-crooks would amount to wild goose chase without the KPI because it is going to guarantee

He said: “The PKI provides a digital signature and this digital signature is just like a drivers licence which when you carry it digitally, whatever crime you make, whatever crime you have it will now bring you out.

“Therefore, PKI is a driver to any infrastructure you can implement in the cyber space, so without proper implementation of this PKI the cyber crime law itself cannot actually work properly, money market cannot work properly so those are also criteria for those things to work.”

The Cybercrime Act prescribes punishment for vandalism of critical infrastructure, other offences, among others.

It states that any crime or injury on critical national information infrastructure, sale of pre-registered subscriber identity module (SIM) cards, unlawful access to computer systems, cyber-terrorism, among others are punishable under the Act.

These are parts of the highlights of the Cybercrimes Prohibition, Prevention Act assented to by former President Goodluck Jonathan on May 15, this year.

The bill, which went through the rigorous process of Sixth National Assembly before it was passed into law listed offences, such as unlawful access to computers, unlawful operation of cybercafes, system interference, intercepting electronic messages, emails, e-money transfer, tampering with critical infrastructure, computer-related forgery.

Theft of electronic devices, electronic signature, child pornography and related offences, racism and xenophobic offences are punishable under the Act.

According to the law, its objectives are to provide an effective and unified legal, regulatory and institutional framework for the prohibition, prevention, detection prosecution and punishment of cybercrimes in Nigeria: ensure the protection of critical national information infrastructure and promote cyber security and the protection of computer systems, networks electronic communications, data and computer programmes intellectual property and privacy rights.

The law states that the President may, on the recommendation of the National Security Adviser, by Order published in the Federal Gazette, designate certain computer systems or networks, whether physical or virtual, the computer programmes, computer data or traffic data vital to this country that incapacity or destruction of or interference with such systems and assets would have a debilitating impact on security, national or economic security, national public health and safety or any combination of those matters as constituting Critical National Information Infrastructure.